Apple's retail point-of-sale system suffers nationwide outage

Customers at Apple retail stores across the country have been unable to make purchases or pick up items ordered online through Apple's Personal Pickup program thanks to an apparent glitch in the company's point-of-sale systems that occurred on Thursday.

Apple's SoHo store in New York City

AppleInsider received several reports from readers on Thursday who revealed that the internal systems which run Apple's retail stores throughout the U.S. were down for at least two hours, with at least one report that the outage may extend internationally. Both in-store purchases and pickups for online purchases are affected.

The outage could put a not-insignificant dent in Apple's revenues. The company reported an average of $50 million in revenues per store for the fiscal fourth quarter of 2013, or just under $50,000 per hour, assuming an average operating time of 12 hours per day. With 253 stores in the United States, that means the glitch may have already cost Apple as much as $25 million.

This is a particularly busy time for Apple's retail stores, with the iPhone 5s and 5c, iPad Air, and new Retina display-equipped iPad mini all having been released within the last two months and the busy holiday season ramping up.

Well, I always like these gross estimates. Do we really believe that a customer won't eventually buy what he/she came to buy? Sure, some are spur of the moment, but if you want a new iMac, will you really just go across the street and buy a Windows PC because the cash register was broken? Geez.

Why not just write, "the outage could put a significant dent in Apple's revenues?"

To which the answer is, no, no it couldn't. People will come back later to pick up their stuff.

That is a way of emphasizing a point. It is quite often said that way ... 'That is a significant amount of money' doesn't quite carry the oomph of ... 'That is not an insignificant amount of money'. There is an underlying feeling of astonishment, if you will, in the former usage that is lacking in the latter.

You might say ... 'Wow, that is not inconsequential at all!" It has way more impact phrased that way than ... "Wow that is consequential!"